Polish PM: My government has had successful first half

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło has said that her government’s two years in power have proved a successful first half of its term in office.

Beata SzydłoKPRM

She said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Monday: “I’d like to compare my government to our national [football] team... and I’d say that we have been successful in the first half... We are winning.”

Szydło’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party won a landslide in parliamentary elections in October 2015.

President Andrzej Duda designated Szydło as prime minister on November 13 that year.

The Financial Times noted that Szydło’s government has overseen fast economic growth and improving living standards in Poland — as well as a series of clashes with Brussels.

Law and Justice’s election triumph two years ago “paved the way to power for a party bent on representing Polish interests more assertively abroad and heralded a broader rebellion against the EU goal of ‘ever closer union’ that has had echoes in elections from the UK to the Czech Republic,” the British paper wrote.

Brussels elites 'no longer in touch'

It cited Szydło as saying in an interview: “People in Europe feel more and more that the elites in Brussels are... no longer in touch with the problems that they should be concerned about — such as the safety of the citizens of the EU, the labour situation, and increasing employment and improving wages.”

She added: “They are more and more focused on the bureaucracy, and on the red tape that they have themselves created... This leads to crisis, and... we should discuss these matters especially now after the UK decided to leave the EU.”

Meanwhile, Szydło wrote on Twitter on Monday: "On November 13, 2015, PAD [President Andrzej Duda] designated me as prime minister. Thank you for the two years together. Well-wishers for their support, critics for motivating me."